*General Note: The below instructions, which were successfully completed and tested are from the prospective of a person who do not have any previous knowledge about cloning, advance level Linux administration etc. If you find it too amateurish, please let us know with the comments session and corrections. We will be more than happy to amend the post.

Most probably few of the errors we received with write permissions missing to /tmp for applprod user should because of missing Rapid Clone patches.

Prerequisites

Oracle VirtualBox (We don’t support a physical system as detailing a cloning for a Linux system wouldn’t fit entirely within the discussed topic)

Minimum 4GB of memory to spare for the Virtual Machine

500GB of free hard disk space (If you don’t have additional 500GB, you can use the same source machine for cloning, by backing up the necessary folders and after removing the E-BIZ folder entirely)

Step #1

Create a folder on a partition where you have 500GB or more space and call it “ebiznew”

Copy and paste both System.vdi and ebs1211db.vdi from your other virtual machine folder, where you have a properly working Vision Instance (We are not going to clone the existing VM using the VirtualBox clone utility)

Make sure from your HOST box you can ping the new VM by both hostname and IP address

*Special note: If you have a total of 8GB(only) memory with your box, you have to change the memory allocations for both your VMs (one which already has the Vision instance configured & the new VM on which you are going to execute the cloning) to 2GB each

Boot up you VM with Vision instance configured and running (Aka source system)

Edit /etc/hosts file and add the IP address and hostname of your new VM

As root

vi /etc/hosts

192.168.0.50 ebs1213.rhome.com ebs1213

Where ebs1213 is the new hostname you have set for the new VM. Adjust it according to the name you have chosen

Save and exit the vi editor and try to ping the new VM from your source VM

ping ebs1213.rhome.com

Make sure you are getting ping replies from the new VM

Start dbTier and appsTier sequentially and make sure that you can access the application

Step #2

Now we are all set to “try” our first cloning process

Prior cloning we MUST prepare the source system for cloning. Hence switch user to “oracle” and switch to following folder (Adjust the path according to your environment)

cd /u01/E-BIZ/db/tech_st/11.2.0.2/appsutil/scripts/VIS_appvis

$perl adpreclone.pl dbTier

(provide the apps password when it is promoted)

The pre-clone should complete within few minutes time, and if there are no errors (in our case), we can proceed to prepare the application tier now

As user “Oracle” switch to

/u01/E-BIZ/inst/apps/VIS_appvis/admin/scripts

$perl adpreclone.pl appsTier

(provide the apps password when it is promoted)

Let the pre-clone procedure complete.

Once the pre-clone procedure has been completed, shutdown the application tier and database tier sequentially

Check for FNDLIBR processes, until the count reaches two(2)

$ps –ef | grep FNDLIBR | wc –l

Now we have to copy the database and application tier folders to our target VM. For our exercise we will create individual tar.gz files for both database and application folders

We will create a new folder with /u01 on the source system

As root

#cd /u01
#mkdir backup
#cd backup
# time tar -zcvf db.tar.gz /u01/E-BIZ/db/*
This will create a new tar ball with the name “db.tar.gz” inside /u01/backup folder
Sit back and relax, it is going to take some time
Once the tar process finishes, we will attempt to create a tar ball for the application tier
#time tar -zcvf apps.tar.gz /u01/E-BIZ/apps/apps_st/*
The entire tar processes may take more than couple of hours time (Depending upon the resources you have allocated for the source VM)

Amount of time required will vary depending upon the resources available. Wait until the transfer completes

Now you can shutdown your source system (So that you can release the memory/processors allocated and increase them with your new VM on which we will continue with the cloning process)

Shutdown your new VM (Target system)

Make changes to your new VM with more memory, processors etc

Boot up the new VM and logon to the VM as root

Step #3

We are going to MIMIC a production instance with our new VM (Please note, do not attempt to violate Oracle’s licensing agreements, our intention is not to help you with doing something which is against Oracle’s licensing terms and Vision instance usage)

We will create two new users and add them to existing oinstall and dba groups

As root

Now switch to /u01 folder (or other mount point as you have created it)

We will create a number of folders, which will be entirely different from the Vision Instance structure

A year back, following the Oracle’s blog, got excited and got engaged with a tedious task to setup a Vision instance for Oracle R12 12.1.3 using the templates.

Against all the warnings and negative responses, I did manage to setup Oracle VM Manager and other repositories using Oracle Virtual Box and put the Vision instance online.

The efforts were unjustified as the tasks involved were supposed to be carried out by a seasoned DBA with advance level Linux knowledge. Apparently I lost the appetite to continue with the solution and discarded the entire setup along with the data repositories.

which explained a different approach towards setting up a Vision instance using the same Oracle templates for R12 12.1.3 and decided to give it a try.

I must say, John Piwowar @ pythian has put everything in place, so that a novice like me could follow the instructions without making any kind of mistakes and get the vision instance up and running.

Once the vision instance was up and running, I started wondering whether I could try something further. Oracle’s template based approach was involving two independent virtual machines serving two different roles

One server providing the database node

Second server providing the application node

At work I am used to deal with a single server hosting both database and application nodes which makes few things like server administration, OS patching etc easier.

Hence I started pondering the possibilities of merging both database and application servers into a single server.

Right now, after around 48 hours, I have successfully managed to merge both the nodes into a single server (virtual) and online with the Vision instance & I am going to share the entire procedures in detail so that you can also!

PART-1 Collect and arrange your stuff

Minimum Requirements

A desktop/laptop machine with minimum 4GB free RAM for the virtual machine. That means you must have 6-8GB base memory

Loads of free storage space. If your fixed disk doesn’t have minimum 500GB free disk space, I recommend you to buy a 1T external HDD (the read/write speed may be compromised, USB3 could be a minor exception)

Access to a very fast internet connection to download the templates from Oracle e-delivery portal

You have to download 11 files, 38GB by continuing

Pythian post describes a method to use wget to download all the files listed, using a file list input parameter, from a OSx/Linux host.

I downloaded the above files from a Windows machine, and must say it was a painful process.

PART-2 Convert the template files into .img and then .vdi files

I am not going to repeat the steps which are already clearly narrated with pythian article. Only suggest that, don’t use a Windows machine and 7zip to do all the unzip and joining the files. You use a Linux Virtual machine to do those jobs. It would be faster, and it would be the best. I created a Oracle Linux 6 VirtualBox to do those jobs by sharing the downloads folder with the Virtual Machine.

PART-3 Backup everything!

So once the img files are converted as .VDI files, the most import thing is to backup the .VDI files to somewhere else! Yes, you may corrupt the sources available inside the .VDI files while attempting to setup the Vision instance. If you don’t have a backup, you have to go through the painful process of unzipping, combining and converting the .img files to .VDI formats. Trust me, this exercise could easily run into 4-6 hours time, depending upon the efficiency of your hardware.

PART-4 1st Gear, slow start

Create a folder called “myvision” (name it anything)

Copy both System.vdi and ebs1211db.vdi (While converting the .img files I gave the .VDI files the same image names) from your database template folder or backup folder to “myvision” folder

The actual size of ebs1211db.vdi over Windows environment will be approximately 220GB, which will be few GB smaller over Linux environment.

As we are planning to host both the dB and Application tier from a single server, we MUST increase the size of ebs1211db.vdi

Let me explain why, prior going ahead

Oracle’s approach towards the VM setup was purely involving two servers(virtual) and both database & application files are placed on /u01 mount point

ie, Database server has a mount point called /u01 and so does the application server

All the clone scripts available for both database & applications servers have certain scripts hardcoded with /u01 as base path. Hence, one could get into useless activities of editing scripts to change the hardcoded base path values to adjust the cloning (Which was done successfully)

Release ebs1211db.vdi from the Gparted Virtual Machine. Let us start creating a Virtual Machine using Oracle’s VirtualBox. Please note we are using the latest version of VirtualBox, if you are not, please update prior you move ahead with rest of the exercises

Please check the VM configurations I made for my Vision Instance Server with the below image

You can see that I have attached both System.vdi & ebs1211db.vdi files under SATA

Now, most important: You must have a .iso image or a physical DVD/CD for a recent release of Oracle/CentOS/RHEL linux, as we have to alter few attributes of the Virtual Machine we are going to put online.

Oracle has created the VM compiling a XEN kernel, which will not work under VirtualBox & you will fail to boot your Vision Instance VM, unless the kernel pointers are changed and recompiled.

Don’t worry it is pretty easy

Follow pythian article until the new kernel installation part

If you have just downloaded the templates from Oracle, you have the latest release of Oracle Linux embedded with System.img/.vdi file, and you don’t have to install a new kernel.

As root

#rpm –qa | grep kernel

If your uek kernel version matches as one provided with the image or higher, you can safely move ahead with creating a new initrd entry. As root issue the following command

If you were following pythian post attentively, your new virtual machine MUST boot, without throwing any errors and prompt you for a login

The default password for root is “ovsroot”

I hope you did change the /etc/fstab entry for “/u01” mounting point prior rebooting the server as mentioned last time and that you have changed the

/etc/sysconfig/oraclevm-template entry to RUN_TEMPLATE_CONF=YES

If you haven’t, please do & restart the Virtual Machine. Optionally you can set a static IP to your box, so that you can start using a ssh client like putty, which will genuinely make many things easier while setting up the server at later stages.

Once the server restarted, you will notice that Oracle will automatically start the cloning process based on the “RUN_TEMPLATE_CONF=YES” entry

Throughout, we were using a hostname “appvis”, hence all the instructions, workarounds will utilize the same hostname. Please adjust the hostname according your preferences

Do you want the the target system to have the same port values as the source system (y/n) [y] ? : n

Target System Port Pool [0-99] : 42

Make a note of the System Port Pool you have entered here, as we must use the same while setting up the Application tier, in order to establish a connection to the database & perform the cloning process

Sit back and let the cloning process for database to complete. It may take a while. Once the cloning process is over, the database will be started.

After a successful completion of cloning, the server will come back to a logon prompt

login as “oracle” and the default password is “oracle”

You will be asked to change the password for user oracle and APPS, ignore the prompts this time.

PART-7 4thd Gear, Free on the roads, hacking the Application tier

As I mentioned, what we are going to do is a pure hack, against Oracle’s design structure.

The first step is to create a soft link, which is mandatory for cloning the Application tier

This error is caused by missing “adautocfg.sh” file in the folder /u01/E-BIZ/inst/apps/VIS_appvis/admin/scripts which the auto configuration tries to access.

Without this file in this particular directory, the cloning process will never complete successfully. So we have to find a solution for it (I am not a APPS DBA and genuinely do not have any idea why the heck this file is missing in this particular location. All I could do is a guess work and it is towards avoiding the oracle template configuration wizard part, which initiates few functions. I’ll check it one of the following days and update this post accordingly)

As root

#cd /u01/E-BIZ/inst/apps/VIS_appvis/admin/scripts#touch adautocfg.sh

#vi adautocfg.sh

and paste the following (Yes you can do it, just change the VIS_appvis with your CONTEXT name)

#!/bin/sh# dbdrv: none

## $Header: adautocfg_ux.sh 120.4 2008/02/19 04:28:02 sbandla ship $## ################################################################# This file is automatically generated by AutoConfig. It will be read and# overwritten. If you were instructed to edit this file, or if you are not# able to use the settings created by AutoConfig, refer to Metalink Note# 387859.1 for assistance.## ###############################################################

The cloning process must complete without throwing any further errors and you will be asked whether the application should be started by the end of the cloning process. You can go ahead with starting the application tier.

However, you will notice, the apache HTTP will fail to start, as the CONTEXT FILE will have entries, which were not properly put in place during our last clone process as it has ended up with a FATAL error.

Let us edit the CONTEXT file and correct those entries now.

(This situation arises only if the cloning is done as user root)

As root

#vi /u01/E-BIZ/inst/apps/VIS_appvis/appl/admin/VIS_appvis.xml

Search for the string

/s_appsuser

replace s_appsuser values “root” with “oracle” and s_appsgroup with “oinstall”

Incase if you are not sure about the http port, open up “VIS_appvis.xml” CONTEXT FILE and scan through, you will find it with url address area

Use sysadmin/sysadmin to logon and enjoy!!!

PART-8 5th Gear, Smooth Sailing, Restarting and online

As a system administrator I literally don’t like the idea of starting resource hungry services until the boxes are completed booted up and online. I prefer to start certain services myself and make sure that whatever were started manually completed the startup process successfully.

As root switch to “/etc/init.d” folder

chmod –x ebizdb

and you are done! The database will not startup next time while you are starting your Vision instance.

I personally prefer to have a proper GUI, coming from an entirely Windows environment, that is a MUST for many times, regardless whether I am working with Linux or Windows systems

Here are the few things I have done to get the GNOME desktop installed with the basic Oracle linux Server embedded with the Oracle VM templates for Oracle R12 12.1.3

(Please make sure, from your Oracle linux box you have access to internet. Do you a ping www.google.com and confirm you are getting replies)

(Please shutdown both database and application prior proceeding)

(Please increase the size of System.vdi file PRIOR experimenting with any of the below exercises, and be careful while you would use Gparted to do it. Make a backup for system.vdi file and follow the thread provided above with the post to resize the partition (it is easy, I assure))

Just 24 hours back, I made another attempt to setup a vision instance at home using VM templates from Oracle and, guys, it was a total success *grin* (Will post the installation steps later, stay tuned, it is loads of fun!)

However I was stuck with an issue, the html/jsp pages will not render properly in Internet Explorer 10 (I am using Windows 8 Pro 64bit) and started with my favorite search toy “google” once again

I came across a blog post from Oracle discussing about the certification path here

and within the thread there was another reference towards a later blog entry, which explained the certification details(here). Unless you are in a hurry, you shouldn’t miss the minimized quote says

Compatibility Mode for IE 10 + EBS 12

To prevent issues with certain OA Framework pages, you should run IE 10 in “Compatibility Mode.” See the “Known Issues” section in Note 389422.1 for more details.

/*You can pass a total of 100 parameters, just make sure to pass them in the same order you have defined them in the parameter session for the concurrent program*/ :ORDERS.OE_ORDER_NUMBER, l_order_type_name, NULL, NULL, apps.fnd_profile.VALUE (‘ORG_ID’));

I have a application DBA friend who is good, knows his stuff and agreed to setup my home desktop machine with Oracle E-Business Suite R12 12.0.4 for certain kind of researches, even though I have access to three test instances at work!

After spending almost three years developing Oracle E-Business custom applications and reports, I just finished a full functional training on module Supply Chain Management from Oracle university, and I came across “Oracle VM Templates”, great, my life was just beautiful until

To run a vision instance all you need is 4GB of spare memory, 500GB storage, VirtualBox and Oracle Enterprise linux. Almost everything here other than the hardware part is free(?) to certain extends, I should had gone for it, instead I opted Oracle VM templates

Now, I needed to download around 37Gb (I already have Oracle supplied DVDs for R12 12.0.3, both 32/64bit) of template files, which come in .zip format. I need Linux environment to join them, OH YES, Oracle documentation for the same is great, provided you are BLIND

Now to use the downloaded templates (which are bundles of application and database tier, pre-configured and expected to run over virtual machines) I need Oracle VM server and Oracle VM Manager which runs only from linux environment (heh, did I say Oracle Linux Only?)

So in total I need 2 numbers of servers, ie, I run two virtual machines using VirtualBox, 1st one is used for a bare metal installation of Oracle VM server, Second is for Oracle Enterprise Linux, on top of which I install Oracle VM Manager)

Ah, forgot to mention, I need two NICs to balance the network load, ie, my hopes to try out the VM templates from company provided hi-end laptop has just started fading….not entirely yet, though

So the story is becoming interesting, ain’t it? We will expand the story as much possible in coming days, until then, please share our joy, we just got our first hundred thousand hits…